


Living for Two

by its_mike_kapufty



Series: Rhink Ficlets [18]
Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Caring, College, Depression, Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 20:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18698479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_mike_kapufty/pseuds/its_mike_kapufty
Summary: Rhett hasn't been well lately.





	Living for Two

**Author's Note:**

> This is my love letter to everyone who has been kind and patient and supportive recently. Lots of folks are going through a hard time as of late, and seeing how strong our support system is for one another is truly a thing to be celebrated. Thank you. You're being your mythical best.
> 
> Wrote this drawing from my own depression and bipolar disorder. Take care of yourself.
> 
> Special thanks to [B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/analog08/pseuds/analog08/works?fandom_id=1373381) for beta'ing. You're the best. ❤

_ Map it out like I always do. Even on good days. _

_ Don’t hit any potholes. Don’t take any detours. Don’t pick up any hitchhikers. _

Closing his eyes lets the fabric of his comforter brush against his lids. It’s soft and forgiving and stinks of sweat and self-sex.

_ I got up. (Didn’t brush my teeth.)  _

_ It was raining. (Forgot my umbrella.)  _

_ Went to class. Tried to pay attention. (Can’t remember the lecture.)  _

_ Was there homework? (Definitely, yes. Don’t know what it was. Something big’s due tomorrow.) _

_ I have to get started on it. (No.) _

_ Rather rot. Feels… well, not nice. Nothing really feels ‘nice.’ But it’s better than doing anything else. _

_ ‘Cept maybe sleeping.  _

_ Yeah. Relief. I should— _

_ That’s a pothole. Focus. _

_ Focusing’s exhausting. _

The air under the bed stuffs grows hot and recycled. Oxygen lessens with each measured heave, and his heart lulls further with every reaching inhale. He can’t breathe quite right. But that’s okay. Numb.

A courtesy knock raps on the hollow metal door and the jangle of keys announces the end of… whatever brand of sanctuary this is. Strain of having to act normal yanks taut on his mind, and it would be fine, except it’s not, and it’s impossible to prevent his mood from souring. Time to be social. Time for call and response and to make others happy when he’s not happy. 

Please don’t let there be anyone aside from him coming in.

“Rhett?” 

The inquiry’s gentle. Eyes shut, Rhett waits for the change in colors that heralds the return of overhead fluorescents. But then the door shuts and there’s shuffling and the hush of plastic grocery bags as Link makes his way through the unlit room.  _ You can turn on the lights,  _ Rhett wants to say, but he leaves it. Too late.

A series of rhythmic clicking like a gas stove lighting and the desk lamp flickers to life. When the color doesn’t bleed through his vision, Rhett blinks, syrupy. Stares at the barely-illuminated fabric threatening to touch his eyes. The stitching is so intricate. Tiny. A machine made this.

“Bo,” Link implores, and Rhett flicks his gaze to a different patch of threads. 

_ Don’t do me like that. Don’t be soft. _

When he speaks, his voice breaks from disuse. “Yeah.”

“Mind if we watch some TV together? You don’t have to get up.”

_ That sounds like hell. Not because of him. Anything would sound like hell. _

“Sure.”

Rhett waits. He knows what it sounds like when the set’s turned on and it’s not happening. Link’s walking around, darting back and forth in the dim and doing god-knows-what. Picking up things. Opening things. Not staying still. It’s not agitating—it’s Link—but it  _ is  _ agitating, and it’s not his fault.

After what feels like a lifetime spent in purgatory, Link slaps the button on the TV and it reverberates with a metal  _ ploink.  _ Voices string together in a long nonsensical sentence as he flips through the channels. When he settles on one, the unmistakable, high timbre of a cartoon they’d watched together a few times fills the room:

_ “Shut up, fatass!” _

Rhett hasn’t breathed in a while. He remedies that and flushes the blankets out once for fresh air. 

“South Park okay with you?”

“Sure.”

_ Don’t ask how I am. _

“Here.”

Rhett hesitates and braces himself before tugging the blanket down enough to reveal his face and a limp hand. Link’s hovering over him with a neutral expression and offering a water bottle so cold it’s frosted with condensation. His feathered hair is extra wind-beaten. A thin sheen of sweat glistens on his forehead in the lamplight. 

He gives the bottle a lazy shake— _ earth to McLaughlin _ —and Rhett takes it. The chill piques a part of his brain that hadn’t spoken up in a while, and dismissing it swiftly, he sets the drink in the floor near the head of the bed. “Thanks.”

“Yep.”

There’s something in his other hand, Rhett notes distantly. Before he can identify it Link’s settled in the floor with his back to the edge of the bed. Typical. Doesn’t even ask permission. Why should he? They’re close. It’s a non-issue—personal space, that is. And Rhett should be okay with it. It’s Link.

Link is the exception to every rule.

“Oh, this is a good one. The underpants gnomes episode,” Link commentates with a genuine chuckle. “You remember this one?”

“‘Course.” Rhett spins onto his side so he can gaze over Link’s shoulder at the screen. “Wasn’t that long ago we watched it.”

For a while it’s quiet save the broadcast. And try as he might to pay attention, Rhett finds himself watching the side of Link’s face more than the show. There  _ has  _ to be some ulterior motive lying in wait. Any second now, he’s gonna spring it on him.  _ How was your day? Do you wanna talk about it? Why have you been so weird lately?  _ When it happens, Rhett doesn’t know what he’ll do. But he knows it won’t be good.

It hadn’t gone well with his parents, anyway. In high school it had been easier to keep it under wraps when he wasn’t at home, but he’d been living with Link for two years now, and through serendipity alone, Link hadn’t seen this side of him. Yet. ‘Til now. So the questions are coming. Just a matter of time.

Link’s head tilts to his lap and Rhett pretends to watch the show. Here it goes.

Then there’s harsh plastic crackling followed by a pop—a container, of some kind?—and Link cocks his head back to meet Rhett’s eyes. 

He’s closer than Rhett had realized. Their noses are inches apart.

“Strawberry?”

Rhett squints. “What?”

“You wanna strawberry?” Like it’s a perfectly normal question, Link holds one of the plump red things up by its leaves for Rhett to see. “Bought ‘em on the way home. Swung by that corner grocer.”

“It’s raining,” Rhett states. The dots shouldn’t connect, but Link knows what he means.

“I had my umbrella. Walk wasn’t too bad.” His hand inches marginally closer to Rhett’s face in a goad. 

_ Does  _ he want a strawberry? He doesn’t know. Honestly. He couldn’t be more ambivalent about it if he tried, and he’s not trying.

“C’mon, man. I bought ‘em for both of us.”

“Fine.” Rhett shifts to sit up, but falters to a stop when Link closes the distance to his face.

_ “Ahhh,”  _ Link instructs, opening his own mouth.

Freakin’  _ ridiculous _ . Brow furrowed, Rhett glares hard at him over the affronting treat. But Link’s nonplussed. Not chagrined in the slightest. Face burning, Rhett settles back down and breaks their eye contact to follow directions. 

“Ahhh.”

Gingerly, Link pushes the tip of the berry into his mouth—weird that he’s so delicate, he can probably fit the whole thing, after all—and Rhett bites down, trying to ignore the obvious hawklike attention with which Link’s watching. Eating serves as a welcome distraction, and Rhett’s scowl eases.

Food. Food is good. The strawberry’s a tad soft, but that’s how he likes them. Had Link known that? He might’ve. It’s flavorful and on the tail-end of its ripeness, juicy enough to turn into a room-temperature smoothie in his mouth as he chews. Link eats the other half—the less flavorful part, and nudges his glasses up absently.

“S’good,” Rhett relents. Link didn’t ask, but he’d feel guilty not saying  _ something.  _ “Why’d you get ‘em?”

“Good for ya, man. Asked a professor comin’ out of the med building today.”

_ What? _

“S’posed to be good for brain health.” Link shrugs and speaks to the pack of them in his lap. “That’s what she thought, anyway, and who’m I to disagree with a doctor?”

_ The crap? Good for ‘brain health?’  _

_ Right. It’s ‘cause we’re students.  _

_ That’s it. That’s gotta be it. _

Rhett pulls his blankets up over his nose and stares at the TV pointedly, feeling the bags under his eyes. 

_ That’s not it. _

_ Link knows. _

He hazards another look at him, one stolen while Link can’t see. But the guy is fine. Nothing indicates his demeanor’s shifted, or even that he cares Rhett hasn’t responded. That’s…  _ huh. _

He knows, and he’s acting… normal.

“Another?” Link asks without looking up, and Rhett hums.

“Sure.”

The second time comes as natural as breathing; Link’s deft fingers proffer the strawberry to Rhett’s lips, and with hazy eyes lost of focus, Rhett opens up and bites the end off. Same as before, Link eats the other half, tearing off the greens and letting them free-fall to the lid of the container like autumn leaves.

It’s… nice? There’s a warmth that comes with the closeness. 

_ Intimacy.  _

No, that’s—that’s too intense. But it’s not unpleasant, no matter the label given. Familiar, comforting. Like home, but better, in a way, ‘cause not even at home had there been this leniency. This unspoken level of understanding.

_ Hitchhiker. Don’t pull him down with you. _

Rhett shakes the thoughts away, does his best to return to a baseline that doesn’t tang with sap and need. Weird headspace. He’s fine. Kinda all over the place, but fine. Link’s here. 

Rolling his shoulder, Rhett reaches down to nab his drink from the floor. His and Link’s hands meet it at the same time, and Link’s already pushing it up into his grasp when Rhett’s face twists in distaste.

“Here—“

_ “I got it.” _

“Sorry. I know ya do.”

Rhett pulls the bottle to his chest and presses it in a defensive flush to the crook of his neck. The condensation beads and wets his skin, cools his head in more ways than one.

“Ugh… sorry.”

“You’re fine.” 

The buckling of the container is raucous as Link closes up the berries and sets them aside. He twists at the waist to face Rhett, resting an elbow on the mattress near his ribs. Drums his other fingers in his lap as he studies Rhett’s face. The sound of the TV fades to a murmuring under sustained eye contact, piercing and barren. 

Logically, Rhett knows he should be drinking. He’d taken his water ‘cause he wanted it. But he’s locked up under his roommate’s scrutiny and waits for Link to elaborate on his sudden fixation.

“When’s the last time you showered?” Link asks carefully.

_ Geeze _ . Link never had to censor himself when it came to Rhett, but that was blunt, even by their standards. How does one respond to that?  _ Do I smell?  _ Obviously, or he wouldn’t have asked.  _ You can move back a bit.  _ No—no. He’s trying. That much is clear. Shit, why is this so hard? It had been a question, Rhett, just  _ answer it. _

“It’s… been a while.”

“That’s okay. Might be your sheets,” Link ponders aloud, running his hand over the covers thoughtfully, and Rhett swallows. He remembers what it smells like, and it’s not a smell Link should  _ ever  _ have to worry about, let alone be close enough to comment on. Christ.

“S-Sorry,” stammers the blond, recoiling into the sheets and pulling them towards the wall. But Link’s shaking his head adamantly. 

“Don’t—you gotta stop apologizin’, man.” He pauses, and Rhett wants to beg  _ no  _ before the next words even leave his mouth. “Not the first time I’ve smelled jizz. Ain’t a big deal.”

_ “Fuck’s sake,”  _ Rhett groans, burying his face in his hands and letting his water fall to the bed. 

“Lemme wash ‘em for you.”

_ “Link!” _

“What?”

Rhett pushes the heels of his palms into his eyes until he sees spots. “I can’t—you can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause it’s gross.”

“It’s really okay.”

Dragging his hands down, he manages to look at Link again through humiliation. 

He’s unbothered, steady blue eyes patient and clear of turmoil. Like they aren’t discussing the fact that Rhett’s bed reeks of depressed shame. Like it wouldn’t be a big deal for him to gather everything up and take it down to the washroom—which might as well be across town—and do his laundry for him. Rhett can’t find the words, and Link bows his head and picks at his fingernails. 

“If I don’t do it, are  _ you  _ going to wash them?”

_ No. _

The response doesn’t make it out, but the reluctance is an answer in itself.

“Alright. Why don’t you go take a shower—” Link hoists to stand, pressing hard into the mattress and forcing Rhett to brace himself not to curl around his arm—“and I’ll get these washed? Actually… I’ll throw your bathrobe in, too. You can wear mine when you get out.”

Rhett wants to glower. Wants to tell Link to get lost, or at the very least leave him alone. Go find someone else to mother hen. But where lack of conviction refuses to help, it also refuses to harm. So he sighs and commissions himself to his feet, wobbles and catches his weight on the bed frame while Link strips the mattress down expertly, effectively ruining any chance for a change of heart.

“You might feel better after you shower.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“I know. But you really should. Can’t put it off forever.”

“Mm. Your bathrobe’s prob’ly too short for me.”

“Well, then you can wrap yourself in a towel? But no one’s gonna say anything ‘bout it either way.” 

Resolve crumbling, Rhett gathers things in a slow fog and collects what he needs for a trip to the showers. Link has stopped moving, though, and when he turns to clock the other’s progress, he finds the brunet standing patiently, waiting with a bundle of soiled sheets and bathrobe in his arms.

“You waitin’ on me to go first?”

“If you don’t mind. Just wanna be sure.”

“...Fine.”

Without another glimpse at him, Rhett’s hand wavers over Link’s bathrobe on the back of their door. He swallows, grabs it, and pardons himself and his caddy to the bathroom, hardly hearing Link shut the door behind them as they make their way down the hall together.

Showering is Hell. For the first few minutes, anyway. Getting wet is unnatural and every further inch of his skin that dampens screams  _ wrong _ , but once his entire body is doused, Rhett suds up with massaging touches to his scalp and muscles. The longer he stays, the better he feels. Come time to get out, he finds he almost doesn’t want to. Almost.

Link’s bathrobe is nice. It’s more plush than his own and smells like shelter and cleanliness. When he dons it, the absurd notion that he’s able to wear Link’s healthy state of mind accompanies him, and for the first time that day the haze lifts from his brain. Things are sharper. Refreshed, he pads back to their room and lets himself in, eyeing their caddy to ensure it doesn’t drip all over the tile.

Link is on the floor, same spot as before. He looks up and smiles fondly at Rhett—or, more accurately, at Rhett’s mop of wet curls.

“Feel better?”

“Kinda,” Rhett nods half-heartedly. “Gotta change.”

“Yep.”

Long flannel pants and a ribbed tank top. Not a good match for practical use, but comfort-wear on both accounts. Not like he was goin’ anywhere. He settles down beside Link and before he even really knows what he’s doing, reaches for the strawberries. With his massive appetite nowhere to be seen, it’s more a favor to his body than a bid of hunger.

Link stays quiet. When Rhett glances up at him out of the corner of his eye, it’s just in time to catch Link flick his attention back to the TV. But he’s smiling. Why’s he smiling? 

“Daria?” Rhett gives the show an approximate five seconds of his time before ignoring it again. “Cartoon night, huh?”

“Yep. Just like the good ol’ days.”

Everything’s in slow motion when Rhett judiciously selects a strawberry and brings it to his mouth. Creeping, drawling, trying. 

Almost there. 

Shit. 

It’s sluggish enough that he stops and grimaces. Even when he thinks things are getting a little better, they aren’t. It’s always present, lurking. Making everything harder than it needs to be.  _ Motor skills  _ are hampered. What kind of sickness is it where the only symptom is a fucked up head? So stupid. No wonder his parents never understood.  _ He  _ isn’t even sure he understands. He’s just broken, and that’s about all there is on the matter. Fun.

“Hey, so…” Link pulls his knees to his chest and hugs them. Taps his toes against the tile floor in a meandering rhythm in a way that tells Rhett he’s nervous about whatever he’s going to say. 

Rhett should help him. Give him a step down to open a conversation. Something small and noncommittal. 

_ No energy for it. _

So he waits.

“Uhh. We have that paper due tomorrow for 385.”

Ah. Finals. No wonder he’s scared to bring it up—it’s no secret Rhett hasn’t been keeping up with his workload. The very thought is laughable at this point.

“Uh-huh.” He’s still holding the strawberry. Little red security blanket?

“It’s… it’s a big part of our grade.”

“Is it?” Not that it makes much difference now.

Link nods aimlessly and thumbs at the hem of his jeans. “Mmhmm. And—don’t be mad.”

Oh, no. Rhett can feel the way his brow tenses up, looking between Link’s itching fingers and his drawn face. “What?”

“I, uhh. I wrote yours for ya.” Link peers over at him with all the bravery of a child confessing to sneaking a cookie. 

Rhett can only stare. In all their years together, they’d  _ never  _ done one another’s homework. It was a rule they’d never established through conversation, but stood nonetheless. Grades were an honest feedback of comprehension. A way to gauge whether they were on the right track, or whether they needed to have more study sessions and help each other. But  _ this  _ breed of help… it was a first.

“Why?”

“‘Cause you couldn’t do it. And that’s okay.” Link speaks fast. “I don’t want you to fail the class, Rhett. I know you know the material. I know you’d pass it if you did it. But you can’t. So I felt—I wanted to help. Sorry I didn’t ask, but I knew you’d say no.” 

Rhett’s at a loss, and Link keeps going.

“Don’t worry though! I know your writing style and tried to replicate it, so it’s totally different from mine. No one will be able to tell. I even chose a different topic from the list—my second choice—and both our papers’re good, if I may say so. Citations are there, it’s all finished. S’in my backpack, and I forwarded it to you so y’can email it, if we gotta.” 

Link swallows, and when  _ still  _ Rhett can’t think of anything to say, he finishes abruptly. “ _ Sorry _ .”

“N-No. No, that’s… holy shit, Link.” 

One less thing to worry about. One less gigantic, overbearing, physically-impossible thing he doesn’t have to do. Because Link did it for him. On top of his own finals. 

He’s pulling doubles for Rhett.

“It’s okay?” breathes Link, eyes searching Rhett’s face.

He would. He  _ would  _ do something invaluable for Rhett and then beg forgiveness upon its reveal. What kinda person was Rhett anyway, that Link even thinks he would be angry with him? Was he that big a piece of— 

_ Detour. Stay on the path ahead. _

“Buddyroll.” It comes out in a light chuckle as he elbows Link. It’s the most emotion he’s shown in days—he knows it—but the pay-off is worth the effort ten times over. Link’s face blossoms into warmth, that crooked grin and those self-pleased eyes shining in full-force as he relaxes his embrace on his legs.

He’s happy. Rhett hasn’t seen him that happy since… 

Since he hasn’t been. 

There’s still a missing ‘thank you’ he owes, but it’s now crushed wet and sobering under a rushing flush of realizations as Rhett’s throat thickens and eyes burn and breathing hitches and Link’s  _ still there _ and his smile’s fading quickly and  _ why can’t he smile while Rhett can’t? _

“Hey, it’s okay.” Back to comfort mode. Back to worry and a hand on his back and that hadn’t happened before but it’s okay in this moment, it’s  _ more  _ than okay, and Rhett doesn’t know what he’s doing but he’s leaning over and resting his wet head on Link’s shoulder and the arm around his back snakes farther and tightens around his ribs, bringing their sides together, and it’s okay.

_ “Bo,”  _ Rhett rasps through tears. He hasn’t been held in a long time. Has never been held on account of this sickness.

“I’ve got you. I’m here.”

_ He is. He never left before this, and he still won’t. _

“You’re doin’ great, Rhett. It’s gonna be okay.”

“Not doin’ great.”

“You’re doin’ your best.”

_ Not a hitchhiker. A guide. _

“Tryin’.”

“I’m proud of you,” Link murmurs softly, words lost in an obnoxious MTV commercial. 

Rhett knows what happens when Link drags his cheek across the top of his head, but it doesn’t make it any less ethereal when a brief, insistent kiss presses into his hair. 

Everything is warm. A night of firsts, it would seem. Of Link feeding him strawberries and doing his laundry and finishing his finals. Of being understood and accepted. Of being carried when he can’t walk. Of  _ another  _ kiss—this one longer, paired with breathing on his scalp and a gentle rub from the arm encircling him.

Link cares so much.

“Rhett.”

Rhett closes his eyes. Feels the wet on his cheeks.

“I know you don’t like the top bunk. And you’re probably looking forward to sleeping on clean sheets.”

He’s whispering. Rhett’s cheeks burn.

“You can say no, but…”

_ Please. Please ask. _

“I—I wanna hold you tonight. Is that okay? It would make me—think it would make both of us feel better.”

“Yeah.” Rhett’s response barely comes out, but Link hears it, and the next kiss is further down. It begs Rhett to tilt his head back just a bit and plants, fleeting, on the crest of his cheek. Like they’re kids again, and it’s no big deal. Judging by the way Rhett’s neck heats, however, it’s not nothing. 

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.”

_ Didn’t brush my teeth. (Link gave me a mint.) _

_ Forgot my umbrella. (Link walked me to class under his.) _

_ Can’t remember the lecture. (Link got me the notes.) _

_ I think I love him. (Link definitely loves me.) _


End file.
